Been trying to avoid this... For the last few days been hoping someone else writes it and saves me the trouble. We've heard that during McLaren Honda relationship that the Honda's engine was capable on simulator and Dyno but when strapped to the back of the McLaren it was capable of only going up in smoke. Fair enough so McLaren make the change to Renault power and Honda finds its way to the Torro Rosso. Now McLaren has had it's car suffering reliability problems at similar rates to Honda... Meanwhile the Honda engine strapped to Junior red bull has not only worked reliably but the drivers have even praised the power it makes. This leads me to my question what's the chances and when can we say that perhaps it was McLaren and not Honda's fault? Curious to see other opinions because this has been eating me up the last week and today's results only seem to confirm it.

_________________Don't be quick to judge or the verdict might come back to you.

Today's results have zero bearing on anything that happened last year. Haas had an oil leak today, too - what's their excuse? And even if McLaren have produced a dud this year, it makes no difference to the situation in previous years. Why do people insist on jumping to conclusions on the flimsiest of evidence?

The Honda engine was severely lacking in power last year. Even Honda admitted it. I can't even see how this is a discussion point

Some facts from various times during the past few years:- The fact that Honda's MGU-H lasted for only two races, resulting in a lot of breakdowns and a lot of grid penalties, was not Mclaren's fault- The fact that Honda's PU was fully put together on the track for the first time was not McLaren's fault- The fact that said PU then just not functioned correctly and vibrated itself apart, was not McLaren's fault- The fact that Honda only tested a single cilinder setup on the dyno, which then didn't seem to be as representative for a full engine as they thought, was not McLaren's fault

There are SEVERAL well-documented separate problems that were caused by no other reasons than Honda getting it wrong.

Fast forward to today. Yesterday's problems were caused by faulty batteries from Renault, as communicated by Renault. RBR had the same issue with a faulty battery. Today, they are doing a PU change because of an oil leak.

Is it a coincidence McLaren seems to get most of the problems this week? Well, yes. But coincidences do exist, and if the PU manufacturer comes out to say it's the batteries, then nothing Mclaren could have done differently.

Of course, if McLaren gives strict specifications of where they want to go with the car, then sure, I guess that impacts some design decisions Honda took. But, you know what I tell my boss or a work partner when he tells me to do something that is not possible to do well? I sure as heck tell him so. And most of all, I don't cut corners in delivering a vital piece of work. The things I listed above are not the result of McLaren asking to deliver a compact PU, they are the result of Honda either failing to communicate that something is not possible, or Honda not doing due diligence in making sure their solutions will work well.

TL;DR two problematic days in testing where most of the problems aren't even their fault do not make it so that they were to blame for the previous years.

TBH Mclaren is a mediocre team for some time, they are becoming Williams. I do not know why people are surprised. I do not think they will get podium this year. But it should be good fight in the midfield teams.

TBH Mclaren is a mediocre team for some time, they are becoming Williams. I do not know why people are surprised. I do not think they will get podium this year. But it should be good fight in the midfield teams.

Even Williams snuck a podium in last year, with Stroll no less!If they have reasonable reliability and the Renault PU is at least as good as last season, when it's not eating its own tail, then there's a good chance at least Alonso can put himself in a position to be in the right place at the right time.

I believe McLaren are a worse team than they were in 2014, where with the best engine on the grid they came 5th.Being with Honda put them 9th, 6th & 9th, but I don't believe that if they stayed with Merc engines they'd have be doing better than the 5th they got in 2014. Putting the third (maybe back to being the 4th - TR seem to be doing well with the Honda engine) best engine in the back of the McLaren isn't going to bring them back to the point of getting podiums.

They'd be doing very very well to get 5th this season. Which is better than the past three years, but not great. I fully expect them to be battling with Toro Rosso most of the season.

Nah...Honda was guilty as well, but Mclaren wasn't completely faultless. The constant glorification of their chassis was always suspect to me. All in all, I think Honda did a bad job, but Mclaren did a mediocre job when you factor in the resources they had at their disposal. To me there was never any evidence that their car was better chassis wise than the Force Indias and Toro Rossos of recent years. We will learn more in the following months.

Nah...Honda was guilty as well, but Mclaren wasn't completely faultless. The constant glorification of their chassis was always suspect to me. All in all, I think Honda did a bad job, but Mclaren did a mediocre job when you factor in the resources they had at their disposal. To me there was never any evidence that their car was better chassis wise than the Force Indias and Toro Rossos of recent years. We will learn more in the following months.

Beating them with a much worse engine showed us their chassis was better. What we didn't know was where it stood compared to the big 3 and I think we've found out what was feared in that it falls smack bang in that big chasm between RB and FI last year. Could be closer to FI than RB though based on testing.

Looks like Renault are there with them this year though and the baby Ferrari Haas will start the year pretty competitive too again.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Honda were to blame, but mclaren should not get sway scott free in the blame department.. Honda were dictated to by mclaren in the size zero department, anf theur wrkingm relation wasn;t that good. The limited in season testing didnt help much too...Then you have Eric who sounds useless, and Alonso shooting his mouth off.. Then in comes Zak who seems like a wheeler dealer type business man rather than a proper team principle..

It used to puzzle me when those 2 TV presenters (you know who they are) and lot of fans here in forums used to say McLaren had great chassis. I always maintained thats a myth without any tangible, proof.

Sure Honda engine was terrible, but if you look at Gary Anderson's comments from the track side at Barcelona, McLaren and its fans should be worried.

The packaging is a serious issue even this year for McLaren. It was burning bodywork on the both sides of the car on this year's car. This is though the insulating padding that is present to protect the car from the heat from turbo, engine and exhaust. So clearly they havent got things under control yet. If it burns the bodywork, it will burn other things that cant be insulated properly. It was similar story with Honda unit. Just saying "We are on top of it" counts for nothing. They have only 2 days to test their setup now. And lack of running over next 2 days will hurt them badly.I do believe there are serious problems within the management and engineering staff in charge of McLaren F1 and they need a change. I hope and wish they are competitive at least in the mid field for the sake of Formula 1, but I wont hold my breath.This was their best chance to topple not just William and TR but even force India who have gone in with a very conservative chassis design due to lack of funds and reduced budget. But they might be under thread from very aggressive Sauber at the end of the day. That would be massive blow to McLaren's F1 division. I wish I had high hopes from them, but I dont. I have always said that I think Alonso made the most stupid mistake of his life to join McLaren back when it happened in 2014 and I still stand by it. Its not the team even its fans think and hope it is. Not any more. Havent been in a long time.

The packaging is a serious issue even this year for McLaren. It was burning bodywork on the both sides of the car on this year's car. This is though the insulating padding that is present to protect the car from the heat from turbo, engine and exhaust. So clearly they havent got things under control yet. If it burns the bodywork, it will burn other things that cant be insulated properly. It was similar story with Honda unit. Just saying "We are on top of it" counts for nothing. They have only 2 days to test their setup now. And lack of running over next 2 days will hurt them badly.I do believe there are serious problems within the management and engineering staff in charge of McLaren F1 and they need a change. I hope and wish they are competitive at least in the mid field for the sake of Formula 1, but I wont hold my breath.

Wait a minute. From what we know the main problems encountered these past 2 days are of Renault's doing. And if some apparent cooling issues during winter testing would be a reason for changing the management and engineering staff (because at this point that seems the only tangible problem McLaren are really responsible for - and for all we know it hasn't even impacted their running much), then Newey and a host of others wouldn't be at RBR anymore for a good couple of years.

And we know Prod is very much of the same train of thought as Newey. Be aggressive with the concept you want and then work back to get it working rather than start slow,conservative and build.

So if they have gone to aggressive on the cooling like RB did a few years ago, you just dial it back a bit until it works, so to remain as close to the principal of your concept as possible.

They aren't trying to just get mileage like STR are with enough cooling for 4 PU's at the back of the car, they know they're getting compared to RB so they have tried to make a chassis to compete. It looks a long way off but we haven't seen it in anger yet, they haven't even done a race stint yet which comes before performance and set up work.

Renault do look very good though so I do think they're in a spot of bother for 4th best but McLaren always develop well so I think post Spain will be more positive but they're not beating Red Bull of course, they look sensational right now and might be outright best.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

I believe McLaren are a worse team than they were in 2014, where with the best engine on the grid they came 5th.Being with Honda put them 9th, 6th & 9th, but I don't believe that if they stayed with Merc engines they'd have be doing better than the 5th they got in 2014. Putting the third (maybe back to being the 4th - TR seem to be doing well with the Honda engine) best engine in the back of the McLaren isn't going to bring them back to the point of getting podiums.

They'd be doing very very well to get 5th this season. Which is better than the past three years, but not great. I fully expect them to be battling with Toro Rosso most of the season.

Really? You think they finish behind Force India with the Merc engine?

We really don,t know what constraints the Mclaren chassis put on Honda, and the same of what Honda caused or prevented Mclaren doing with the chassis.

There are reports of Honda not being able to make some size alterations or placing a component differently, but there are also reports of Mclaren not being able to place the suspension components where they wanted. It seems to have been a dogs dinner to begin with and just went down hill from there.

I was dead against the Mc/Hon split, but I see now it was the only way to go.

It's a tempting thought, and I have to admit that Macca does have a history of unreliable cars that dates well before Honda. So yes, some of the unreliability may be Maccas fault.

But the well-documented issues with the Honda engine are not Maccas fault. The fact that it seems to be running reliably now in the STR doesn't erase the last three years! Sometimes despite myself I'm still astonished at how revisionist and short-term the thinking of F1 fans can be. The engine seems to be good now, 6/8 of the way through testing, so of course it was always good! Macca has had some reliability issues (only some of which are possibly their fault) so of course it's always been their fault!

Maybe the performance of teams - much like the performance of drivers, though you'll never get some people to admit that one - actually changes from year to year?

The packaging is a serious issue even this year for McLaren. It was burning bodywork on the both sides of the car on this year's car. This is though the insulating padding that is present to protect the car from the heat from turbo, engine and exhaust. So clearly they havent got things under control yet. If it burns the bodywork, it will burn other things that cant be insulated properly. It was similar story with Honda unit. Just saying "We are on top of it" counts for nothing. They have only 2 days to test their setup now. And lack of running over next 2 days will hurt them badly.I do believe there are serious problems within the management and engineering staff in charge of McLaren F1 and they need a change. I hope and wish they are competitive at least in the mid field for the sake of Formula 1, but I wont hold my breath.

Wait a minute. From what we know the main problems encountered these past 2 days are of Renault's doing. And if some apparent cooling issues during winter testing would be a reason for changing the management and engineering staff (because at this point that seems the only tangible problem McLaren are really responsible for - and for all we know it hasn't even impacted their running much), then Newey and a host of others wouldn't be at RBR anymore for a good couple of years.

Its not just about last 2 days. They have had issues making a good car far longer now with 3 different engine manufacturers. And though top management has seen heads rolled (and good riddance for some of those ), the technical team is more or less the same with very few new people and new ideas coming in. Redbull has been far more competitive than McLaren and even works team even with the crap reliability they have had last year. I wont put honda's lack of power down to McLaren, that was completely Honda's fault.

At the end of the day its their decision. But if they or their fans think everything is fine, bright and sunny; they are kidding themselves. It has been nothing but midfield team for a while now and slumped to bottom with Honda. This is not the McLaren that saw one of the highest podium ratios since its inception till the 2010s.

So was a plethora of other things including a complete lack of knowledge on the ers side that McLaren had to hold their hand with through 2015 and winter into 2016. So much so the 2015 ICE received no upgrades until Silverstone 2016.

Lets's not pretend the Honda in year 4 in a STR conservatively packaged to maximise running for Red Bull to get a feel on Honda is any way shape or form representative of the Honda's McLaren ran.

STR are providing a platform to let Honda get RB ready, bending to their every whim to get the PU up to scratch. What this highlights is trying to compete from the off was just too much to ask and Honda really needed a couple of years in a team that weren't expecting anything rather than a team that wanted to win with them from the off.

EDIT: I knew I should of quoted Exediron. Every single time I gamble and don't, someone pops up in between. EVERY TIME

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Formula One engines evolve as fast as the regulations allow them. That means that the 2017 Renault engine has evolved so much into it's 2018 iteration that in engineering terms, they are vastly different. It is not fair to compare engines from different years.

In Formula One, any team can push the chassis or engine design up to near 100% of it's full performance potential. But this is Formula One, where being just 1% better is a huge advantage. So the goal is to design an engine or chassis that the engineers believe can deliver performance and also have reliability. As lotus 49 pointed out, you design for maximum performance, then during testing, you dial things back to the level where reliability achieves acceptable levels. And guess what, this is the time of year for testing, where parts are expected to break. If they did not, engineers would be let go by the dozen because they obviously did not design for maximum performance.

Formula One engines evolve as fast as the regulations allow them. That means that the 2017 Renault engine has evolved so much into it's 2018 iteration that in engineering terms, they are vastly different. It is not fair to compare engines from different years.

In Formula One, any team can push the chassis or engine design up to near 100% of it's full performance potential. But this is Formula One, where being just 1% better is a huge advantage. So the goal is to design an engine or chassis that the engineers believe can deliver performance and also have reliability. As lotus 49 pointed out, you design for maximum performance, then during testing, you dial things back to the level where reliability achieves acceptable levels. And guess what, this is the time of year for testing, where parts are expected to break. If they did not, engineers would be let go by the dozen because they obviously did not design for maximum performance.

This is why we call it "testing".

I guess Mercedes and Ferrari are going to fire every engineer they have then because very little is breaking in their cars.

Hard to measure, really. Remember, Honda only supplied engines to Mclaren since they returned to F1 in 2015, there was nothing to compare.

If only Honda also supplied engines to other team (take example Force India), then it appeared that Force India was faster than Mclaren Honda, then yes we could say that the problem was on Mclaren cars (if both were terrible, then we could say that the problem was on Honda engines).

Nah...Honda was guilty as well, but Mclaren wasn't completely faultless. The constant glorification of their chassis was always suspect to me. All in all, I think Honda did a bad job, but Mclaren did a mediocre job when you factor in the resources they had at their disposal. To me there was never any evidence that their car was better chassis wise than the Force Indias and Toro Rossos of recent years. We will learn more in the following months.

Beating them with a much worse engine showed us their chassis was better. What we didn't know was where it stood compared to the big 3 and I think we've found out what was feared in that it falls smack bang in that big chasm between RB and FI last year. Could be closer to FI than RB though based on testing.

Looks like Renault are there with them this year though and the baby Ferrari Haas will start the year pretty competitive too again.

They did not consistently beat Toro Rosso though and they couldn't touch Force India most of the time. I don't agree that this year they are destined to be bad. Way too early to tell. They've had a rough start, but at times during the first week of testing they looked pretty fast. This week they have done no laps so of course we didn't see any fast lap times. But there is still hope for a good year. We shall see.

Its not just about last 2 days. They have had issues making a good car far longer now with 3 different engine manufacturers.

No. We have no idea yet whether they "have had issues making a good car" with Renault. We'll have to wait until the season is well underway to say anything about that.They produced a great car in 2012. 2013 and 2014 was on them, agreed. 2015-2017, all we know for sure is they had a crap engine with crap reliability and crap power output. How well McLaren did their job is not fact, but conjecture (both trains of thought - positive as well as negative).

So if you want to stick with the facts, then the only thing you can blame them in this decade is two-fold: 1. producing not-good-enough cars in 2013 and 20142. choosing to go for Honda (which, let's be fair, is only through hindsight)

Nah...Honda was guilty as well, but Mclaren wasn't completely faultless. The constant glorification of their chassis was always suspect to me. All in all, I think Honda did a bad job, but Mclaren did a mediocre job when you factor in the resources they had at their disposal. To me there was never any evidence that their car was better chassis wise than the Force Indias and Toro Rossos of recent years. We will learn more in the following months.

Beating them with a much worse engine showed us their chassis was better. What we didn't know was where it stood compared to the big 3 and I think we've found out what was feared in that it falls smack bang in that big chasm between RB and FI last year. Could be closer to FI than RB though based on testing.

Looks like Renault are there with them this year though and the baby Ferrari Haas will start the year pretty competitive too again.

They did not consistently beat Toro Rosso though and they couldn't touch Force India most of the time. I don't agree that this year they are destined to be bad. Way too early to tell. They've had a rough start, but at times during the first week of testing they looked pretty fast. This week they have done no laps so of course we didn't see any fast lap times. But there is still hope for a good year. We shall see.

They did beat both at the chassis tracks though pretty consistently. STR and FI had the same advantage Merc and RB had engine wise but McLaren got between them so its either driver or chassis. There's just a lot more 'engine tracks' on the calendar so beating them over a season was unlikely.

Not bad per se,no. I just think they'll be in that gap between the big 3 and the FI (probably them anyway) along with Renault instead of any further up than that.

_________________"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

The packaging is a serious issue even this year for McLaren. It was burning bodywork on the both sides of the car on this year's car. This is though the insulating padding that is present to protect the car from the heat from turbo, engine and exhaust. So clearly they havent got things under control yet. If it burns the bodywork, it will burn other things that cant be insulated properly. It was similar story with Honda unit. Just saying "We are on top of it" counts for nothing. They have only 2 days to test their setup now. And lack of running over next 2 days will hurt them badly.I do believe there are serious problems within the management and engineering staff in charge of McLaren F1 and they need a change. I hope and wish they are competitive at least in the mid field for the sake of Formula 1, but I wont hold my breath.

Wait a minute. From what we know the main problems encountered these past 2 days are of Renault's doing. And if some apparent cooling issues during winter testing would be a reason for changing the management and engineering staff (because at this point that seems the only tangible problem McLaren are really responsible for - and for all we know it hasn't even impacted their running much), then Newey and a host of others wouldn't be at RBR anymore for a good couple of years.

Its not just about last 2 days. They have had issues making a good car far longer now with 3 different engine manufacturers. And though top management has seen heads rolled (and good riddance for some of those ), the technical team is more or less the same with very few new people and new ideas coming in. Redbull has been far more competitive than McLaren and even works team even with the crap reliability they have had last year. I wont put honda's lack of power down to McLaren, that was completely Honda's fault.

At the end of the day its their decision. But if they or their fans think everything is fine, bright and sunny; they are kidding themselves. It has been nothing but midfield team for a while now and slumped to bottom with Honda. This is not the McLaren that saw one of the highest podium ratios since its inception till the 2010s.

You know, it is entirely possible that Honda's improved reliability and the end of their partnership with McLaren are two completely unique, unconnected events. It is also possible that, if Honda have drastically improved their reliability and Renault have either failed to improve their own or actually made it worse, that Renault could now have the least reliable engine. Again, those would be two unconnected events to both each other and McLaren's switch.

Of course, should the works Renault and Red Bull cars all have fantastic reliability while the McLaren keeps breaking down, then it would suggest that the issue is with McLaren's design rather than Renault. But I wouldn't expect that to be the case, certainly not based on last season where the Renault engine wasn't perfectly reliable.

I can't help but feel that the decision to part ways with Honda has actually signed McLaren's death warrant as a top team. They gave up works team status in order to try to win now when, in actuality, they are pretty far from winning now. My gut feeling is that even with a Mercedes engine, they would be more likely to be fighting with FI than with Merc. In this current iteration of F1, being a works team trumps all. Wow, what a series of unfortunate events have unfolded for Alonso these last few years!

Honda was bad, and McLaren was just as bad.It's only pre-season and we have wait to confirm, but so far McLaren chassis does not seem to live up to their hype and the reliability is no better regardless of who is causing it. If McLaren is not fighting with rbr in Australia it would mean they simply used Honda as scapegoats. I don't know how they going to dig themselves out. Skinny sponsors, no free engines, no $100mil from honda and loss of credibility. It would be a serious management failure incuring losses for McLaren. Boulier by his own admission said they were only doing engineering and maintenance last year, not even work on pit stops. For that alone he should be fired. Now we know why they had bad pit stops and strategy last year, what else did he neglec that is going to catch them out.This is the same person that took lotus to its knees.

Honda was bad, and McLaren was just as bad.It's only pre-season and we have wait to confirm, but so far McLaren chassis does not seem to live up to their hype and the reliability is no better regardless of who is causing it. If McLaren is not fighting with rbr in Australia it would mean they simply used Honda as scapegoats.

There's all kinds of wrong with this. Seriously.

1. Honda was bad - fact. McLaren was just as bad - conjecture.2. Chassis now, even if it's not good, doesn't mean it was bad last year3. Reliability is no better: well, compared to last season testing, it is better. Aside from that, the confirmed problems of this week are of Renault's doing, and RBR also had the battery issue.4. If McLaren is not fighting with RBR: see before. RBR has worked for years with the Renault PU so integration would be a no-brainer for them by now, and RBR have gathered much better data over the year as they've had to compromise less on setup and aero which McLaren have had to do. We should fully expect them not to be at RBR's level come season's start. They should, however, close the gap during the year.

We'll know nothing about where McLaren is now until probably after Spain. Mainly because of the integration issue mds brought up. After that the Renault PU should be bedded in and they will have applied their the planned chassis update in Aus as well as the updates that most teams do after the initial round of fly-away races.

Most likely this is an evolution of last years chassis so at that point we might be able to make a guess about how much was lost last year due solely to the Honda PU being turned down for reliability or just being bad but even that will still just be speculation.

Comparing how STR does with the Honda PU this year has no relevance to how good or bad the one McLaren was using last year was.